A few thoughts to throw into the mix. I suspect that the web and a lot of ICT applications are reinforcing literacy at the expense of orality. The internet from its inception has been a literate medium, developed within cultures orientated towards literacy rather than orality.
There are limited applications of voice technologies on the internet todate. Daisy which uses XML/SMIL to produce the equivalent to a talking ebook has soem intereting possibilites I'd liek to play with in the future, but the applications and devices to use daisy files are limited and expensive. Its technology that currently seems to be restricted to libraries for the blind and visually impaired. Other XML technologies of interest would include VoiceXML and Speech Synthesis Markup Language (http://www.w3.org/Voice/Activity.html). There have been quite a lot of work on SSML over the past year, but little of it aimed at African languages. Another possibility is to leverage flash to delivery audio and provide a naviagtion mechanism that is cued by audio instructions. Andrew Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
